As cellular networks and coverage around the world grow, the popularity of cellular devices has greatly increased. In particular, usage of Internet based mobile applications on smartphones has experienced a drastic increase as well. However, these applications tend to consume relatively large amounts of energy compared to the battery life of their corresponding devices. Indeed, many such applications, such as web browsers, are designed to constantly access the cellular network and/or the Internet.
The main contributor to such large energy drains remains the devices' cellular radios. To this end, radios are typically needed to provide the link between a device and a network so that the aforementioned applications can access the Internet. In some cases, the radios add a factor of five or more times the energy cost of their base devices.